Poor People’s Summer

State and national campaign pushes for a congressional Third Reconstruction

Ink Spot Staff Report

On June 7, representatives of the Indiana Poor People’s Campaign held a press conference asking Indiana legislators to support the Third Reconstruction resolution, a 19-page document addressing issues of poverty, systemic racism, and low wages in the U.S.

Over the summer, the organization plans to visit all nine congressional districts in Indiana to encourage legislators to sign the resolution.

Standing near Rep. Andre Carson’s office, Trevor Richardson, 34, spoke about his lifelong struggles with poverty and homelessness.

“I see this campaign as very instrumental in pushing for a lot of the moral changes that are going to help end things like homelessness and poverty,” homeless advocate Trevor Richardson, quoted by the Indianapolis Recorder, outside of Democratic Rep. Andre Carson’s office in Indianapolis.

Richardson, 34, believes the Indiana Poor People’s Campaign will hold lawmakers accountable for providing solutions to poverty.

This was part of the national Poor People’s Campaign’s Moral Monday actions in over 50 locations, demanding that congressional representatives embrace the agenda reflected in the Third Reconstruction resolution to end poverty, saying they choose to change the country rather than be victims of policies that don’t lift from the bottom.

“Nothing less than a Third Reconstruction that seeks to end poverty and low wealth by building from the bottom up, that deals with all the issues at one time and not separately, is what’s needed,” said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. “We do not have a scarcity of money. We do not have a scarcity of money. What we have is a scarcity of social consciousness. You all are saying to this country, that’s over. That scarcity is over, too, because we are going to shift the narrative and the consciousness of this country.”

A National Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers Assembly will be on June 21 in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the one-year campaign, Moral March on Washington, will be announced. The Moral March will be June 18, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

“I would like to see what I believe the American Dream is really about, which is everybody having the right to live, not just struggle to survive,” Richardson said.